A Grand-Slam Experience

There’s something about a pennant race, when the fate of the world hangs on the speed of each pitch, the power of each swing, the certainty of each throw. It’s when anyone can appreciate what the great game, at its best, is all about: subtlety, performance, grace.

If you’re a Braves fan, you might consider spending the playoffs with Strategic Simulations’ outstanding “Tony La Russa’s Ultimate Baseball.”

It is to previous baseball games as the Dodgers are to the Astros. It sets a new standard for all computer simulations, for it beautifully matches strategy with tactics and hand with mind.

To describe the play of “Ultimate Baseball” is to describe the game of baseball itself. At least the game that one talks about, follows in the newspapers and watches on TV. There’s no resin, no drug busts, no beer down your back, but anything that can be done on the diamond or in the dugout is reasonably well simulated here.

With the keyboard or joystick, you can pitch, hit, field, run, manage or trade.

You can play a friend; you can play the computer, or you can make the computer play itself.

You can play the pre-programmed dream teams or create your own teams with their own statistics.

People who play rotisserie baseball will especially enjoy the last feature, for it appears that “Ultimate Baseball” could be programmed for an entire rotisserie league season.

The program is capable of simulating a complete 2,000-plus-game major league schedule in one to three hours. Think about it: every team’s every game.

“Ultimate Baseball” deserves the name. This is the closest anyone’s likely to get soon to capturing the national pastime in pixels.

Ultimate Baseball

Rating: *****

IBM, Tandy & compatibles; 640K; hard drive required. List: $49.95.

Computer games are rated on a five-star system, from one star for poor to five for excellent.